


Matters of the Heart

by Synthtraitor



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Minor Character Death, Other, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 08:47:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21335482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synthtraitor/pseuds/Synthtraitor
Summary: Request: Can I get a Poe x Reader where Poe is jealous because he thinks Reader is in love with her best friend but really she’s in love with Poe but they’re both stupid and then readers best friend has enough of their pining and puts them in a position where they admit their feelings for each other?
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Reader, Reader/Original Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	Matters of the Heart

His knee bounces, his hands clench, his heart – Maker – his heart aches for you, but you’re with Emil, hands held, gazes met, and it’s fine, it’s fine – he’s fine. Really, he’s fine. There are more things to be focused on, more pressing matters to get caught up on – but it’s hard, it’s hard to let go of what little normalcy is to be found when you’ve signed on for a war with no end, that doesn’t exist in the minds of half the galaxy. 

Emil is more muscular, fit, beautiful; She holds herself in a way that gives her some indescribable, yet measurable advantage – but Poe’s got better hair, for sure, and a willing smile. Where she’s beating him in history, he’s won with charm, for sure – but it’s not a competition because love isn’t a competition. War is a competition and love is not war. Love is not war. Love is not. War.

He can’t deny, the fact that you’re smiling, and that, really, is all that counts when it comes down to matters of the heart. He can’t vouch for your well-being after you come back from a scrape, can’t vouch for your state of mind when a voice cuts off to dead static, but he can certainly vouch for your happiness when Emil drapes an arm around your shoulders, when she hands you a steaming cup of soup and you smile, you smile – and you smile and gravity loosens its grip just a little, just enough for him to suck in a breath and it – with you, the air doesn’t taste sour.

He watches you rap your knuckles twice on the hull of your freighter before entering, something he’s observed many times before, from his same perch on a pile of unmoving crates, cleaning the same tool kit he’s always got unfolded in his lap.

You take the ramp in two quick steps, outline cut sharp against the fluorescents spilling out from inside the ship, and then he loses sight of you until you appear again in the cockpit, a soft glow settling cross your face as the dashboard boots up, a harsh light pressed to the back of your head, shaped by the headrest of your chair.

You begin running through your pre-flight checklist, and Emil swivels in her seat next to you, searching for something above her head. She tucks her hair behind her ear, says something, and then you turn towards him suddenly, squinting across the empty tarmac until a grin breaks across your face when you recognize his familiar slouch.

You wave at him through the solar-tinted glass, and for a moment, he can forget the smell of burnt plastoid, melting metal and mettle, and boiling blood while something kinder takes its place.

He raises his hand in a lukewarm greeting, and when you turn back to your task, he begins to feel a different turmoil settle in his gut because he realizes – he realizes that this isn’t sustainable. That this can’t last going the way it is, that it was never meant to, anyways.

Your freighter hisses, then lifts off, hovering above the tarmac for a lingering second, and he realizes that this won’t go away, that he can’t let this affect him, affect you, affect the fight to be fought because he’s lost people, too many people, and he can’t lose the promises he’s made as well because that’s all he is, everything he is, and so he swallows saliva thick, and forces himself to look away before you leave the atmosphere. It’s the right thing to do, the good thing to do, and he’s good so he does it without complaint.

When you return, you’re worn and weary, hair untamed. You can’t be bothered to pick the dirt out from under your fingernails.

Poe can practically hear your voice, or your silence, whichever one hasn’t been stripped from you this time. You’re not a front-liner, but it’s hard labor, running supply lines, out-foxing Order patrols, it takes a good head and an even better tongue, not to mention the guts required to run a blockade – You and Emil are a commodity the general is smart to keep on hand, most definitely.

You step to the side as people begin to off-load the cargo, and Emil stalks off, probably to go over the manifest with whichever quartermaster is on duty. There’s something tense in the way you hold yourself. Emil doesn’t say a word to you as she leaves.

Poe watches from the cockpit of his X-wing as you shift your weight from side to side, your safe return like a mirage in his windshield, the profile of your face bathed in sunlight. He’s cleared for takeoff before you notice him, grey and orange, safety checked, double-checked.

Space always tastes like his breath, recycled and stale and he forgets. He forgets. He forces himself to forget.

Weeks later, another patrol later, he spots you in the mess and can’t tell if it’s Emil making you laugh (you nudge her shin with the toe of your boot) that makes the bread in his mouth turn bland, or it it’s always just tasted that way and he’s never noticed it before. His heart beats - aches.

Burnt metal, lost lives, turned to dust in an implosion with no fire, chatter cut off mid-sentence, the screech of tie-fighters; Poe’s hands shake as he fills the rest of his tray and turns away from the scene sharply. He’s about to escape to the safety of the hallway when you shout his name – and he’s just doing the right thing, the good thing, when you say his name like it’s more than just a name and he simply steps out, lets the door zip shut behind him without acknowledging you, without acknowledging Emil, who knows, who has to know, who’s always known.

He starts peering around corners when he sees your ship on the landing pad, eats at his squadron’s table, back turned towards the corner of the mess you post up in, and you’re angry at first, barely placated by your co-pilot: You corner him, question his absence, point fingers at him, then yourself, and when he doesn’t relent, you accept the forced separation like everyone accepts everything after they get used to it, live with it for long enough. Besides, there are better things to be focused on because your life is war, and when you’re pinned down behind a crumbling wall, blaster bolts whizzing above your head, Emil in your ear, there isn’t a single part of yourself you can spare for him, someone so far away, out of touch.

She holds your hand more, sits closer, watches him with steady eyes as he crosses a room, unseen by you, but the downturn of her lips lacks judgment. Her presence is a constant, and he becomes even more aware of it the longer he pretends to not see you. She makes you laugh, more and more and he still listens, soaks it in until one day, she doesn’t make you laugh. Until one day, you return to base without her at your side and the look – the look on your face –

His breath stalls, his hands fall open, the wrench he was holding clattering to the floor at the sight and his heart – Maker – his heart aches for you – for Emil, for everyone, for everything. He doesn’t understand it, just doesn’t understand anything anymore, hasn’t for a long time and you’re no longer with Emil and it’s not fine. It’s not fine, he’s not fine because – How? How can he focus on anything but your voice, barely a whisper, when he overhears you telling General Leia that you just can’t do this anymore, not after… Not without…

Love isn’t a competition, war is a competition and love is not war. Love is love and war is… this. Life – Your life. A fact of existence – his existence – and he hates it. he hates it.

You don’t smile. Not after your co-pilot’s seat was left empty, after Pava fudged the lock to your freighter and scrubbed the blood off the floors. Two more runs, just long enough for the Resistance to find a replacement, and you don’t smile as you walk out of the general’s office, the compromise bitter on your tongue.

He can’t vouch for your well-being after you come back from a scrape, engines smoking, lights flashing a horrible, horrible red that stains your clothes, your skin, your eyes; can’t vouch for your state of mind when all you get as notice is a shout, locked in time, the voice of a loved one cut off suddenly, prompting you to run out into the fray and drag a body back with you, but he can certainly vouch for your grief when you meet is gaze in an empty hallway, eyes dark and uncaring.

He lets you pass without a word because there’s nothing to fix, because the only chance either of you have at happiness anymore is to put as much distance between yourselves and this awful, awful war, with no end and no soldiers, and that, really, is all that counts when it comes down to matters of war – Whether or not there are any soldiers left to expend.

You’ve always known – he realizes that you’ve always known that you were the one to make him smile, and that, really, is all that counts when it comes down to matters of the heart. Whether or not you’re smiling. It’s all that counts when it comes down to matters of the heart. Matters of the heart - What matters to his heart?

“(Y/N),” he says your name before he can stop himself, do the right thing and let you disappear. His voice bounces down the hallway towards you, inhuman, disembodied and lonely.

You pause. For just a moment, you stall – and he can’t say anything else: War is the feeling in his chest, the feeling that forces its way up his throat and chokes him. War is what makes a person lose their love.

The door hisses shut behind you. Poe’s fist tightens around the data pad, and then he continues on towards his briefing.


End file.
